I'll see your ignorance and raise you World War I, World War II, all those wars the English and French fought, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, Hitler's Slaughtering of the Jews (which was based on race, not religion), everything done by the Soviet Union (which was an atheist state), the regular Dark Ages (which were dark because the Roman Empire fell, if I recall my history correctly), and then add that Christianity founded the basis of the scientific movement and also runs many charitable organizations aiding with disaster relief. Nice try, though. Maybe next time.

And i will match you with every single war in the Far East, most of the wars in Africa, and drug cartels in Latin America. Which pretty much beats out...the Crusades and some minor terrorist activity in the Middle East? And i guess some civil wars in Great Britain.

People are so focused on religious wars in the same way when we say slavery, we think black people. It's our history, it is by no means universal.

I'm in two minds about this subject, as I can see the benefits and drawbacks of secularism and organised religion.

For example here the Church of England is arguably the largest voluntary service in the country, with parishes in virtually every single village, town and city across the country and they promote a lot good services such as education, helping the homeless and help bring communities together, whether they are of the same faith or not.

The problem I have with Organised religion is mainly due to human flaws and the unrelenting to dogma from a text that's a good 2000-3000 years old now. The words a very open to different interpretations and can be twisted and contorted to make them a mockery of the original values so they can met the demands of the masters of that particular church.

The Catholic Faith as infamous for doing this when during the middle ages Kings and nobleman reported and obeyed the church, and followed a lot of it's dogma, and the church horded it's power and suppress a lot of creative scienctific thinking in the West for a long time. Now, this is not exclusive to the catholic faith, and most religions have got to the point where there not as manipulative as that anymore, but they do still have a lot of archiac rules and dogma that can discriminate and hurt progress.

Terrible things have been done in the name of religion, and segretation due to religion still occurs; Sunni;Shias muslims in Saudi Arabia, Judasim: Islam in Isreal and Palestine, Shikism: Hinduism in India and Pakistan and Protestant: Catholic christians in Ireland.

Again a secular is not free of these problems, as Rot brought up, the nazis killed jews because of their race, not their faith, due to the social stigma that they were money grubbing freeloaders stealing people's jobs. And the killing of the Kossacks was indeed racial profiling.

Faith can be a good thing, agreed, and it does have redeeming properties, but to be honest people tend to use religion as a shield to defend their actions, or to inflict their discriminating and manipulative dogma on their followers.

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In my personal opinion, eeveryone is entitled to their beliefs. If u want to be a religious person and attend services at churches, mosques, synagogues (Ruski would know if i spelled the last one wrong. ;) )

But if u choose not to be religious, then u r entitled to that belief.

But if u want to know my opinion, i believe politics and religion help people to be individuals. But when views become extreme it divides mankind.

Religion and politics caused the Crusades, in which many men lost there lifes fighting for their government.

And more recently, the war in the Middle East is all about religion, politics, vengence, and resources.

I'll see your ignorance and raise you World War I, World War II, all those wars the English and French fought, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, Hitler's Slaughtering of the Jews (which was based on race, not religion), everything done by the Soviet Union (which was an atheist state), the regular Dark Ages (which were dark because the Roman Empire fell, if I recall my history correctly), and then add that Christianity founded the basis of the scientific movement and also runs many charitable organizations aiding with disaster relief. Nice try, though. Maybe next time.

your point fails, world war i and ii were done by majority theists, the english and french were very theistic, hence the existence of the king/queen, hitler was a theist, as were most if not all of the nazi leadership. I don't know about southeast asian culture to say for sure they were theistic, but I know japanese and chinese cultures are extremely theistic, and north korea is currently rather theistic.

and most proprietors of scientific advancement had to go against the church to actually teach what they had discovered in the face of extreme censorship by the catholic church.

remember that whole 'earth is flat' thing? the whole 'evolution' thing? what about dinosaurs?

I'll see your ignorance and raise you World War I, World War II, all those wars the English and French fought, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, Hitler's Slaughtering of the Jews (which was based on race, not religion), everything done by the Soviet Union (which was an atheist state), the regular Dark Ages (which were dark because the Roman Empire fell, if I recall my history correctly), and then add that Christianity founded the basis of the scientific movement and also runs many charitable organizations aiding with disaster relief. Nice try, though. Maybe next time.

your point fails, world war i and ii were done by majority theists, the english and french were very theistic, hence the existence of the king/queen, hitler was a theist, as were most if not all of the nazi leadership. I don't know about southeast asian culture to say for sure they were theistic, but I know japanese and chinese cultures are extremely theistic, and north korea is currently rather theistic.

and most proprietors of scientific advancement had to go against the church to actually teach what they had discovered in the face of extreme censorship by the catholic church.

remember that whole 'earth is flat' thing? the whole 'evolution' thing? what about dinosaurs?

A theistic person does not mean that the war was the fault of religion. Just because Hitler was a theist, doesn't meant that WWII was a war of religion (hint: it wasn't.)

I know China and Japan, and probably most of the rest of Asia, are either atheist or have "pagan" beliefs. They have not waged religious wars.

he said Theists have done less bad than atheists. period. religions part in what they did wasn't part of the argument.

Wow. This is more fail than usual for you. Go back and read my posts. My point was that good has come out of religion, and bad has come out of secularism. I was just pointing out the inherent fallacy in saying that "only bad has ever come out of religion". I did not counter with my own fallacy by saying that only bad has come of atheism, as that would be stupid.

More importantly, whether theists were involved in a war is hardly the point. The wars I mentioned wre performed for purely secular, unreligious reasons, and were entirely unaffected by the respective religions of any participants.

Given that there have only been a handful of atheistic states, of course atheists specifically have not waged as many wars as theists. They've not had the opportunity, after all. Just keep in mind that atheism is the lack of theism, and so if a war is not theistic, as the wars I listed clearly were not, it is atheistic.

I was simply reminding that there have been far more secular wars and other such bad than good, because theism is not the root of war, as you seem so eager to proclaim: man is the root of war. But don't worry, NT. We all got a good laugh at your attempts at intelligent trolling.